Parallels on External HDD

neio said:
I have one but its too much of a hastle to carry around with the added problem of needing an external power source,

I prefer the USB 2.0 laptop HDD casing., quick, fast and easy.
Click to expand...

I have a Vantec 2.5" USB2 casing, and took delivery of a ViPower 2.5" USB/FW400/FW800 casing yesterday. All bus powered. BUT, as per one of my previous posts, there seems to be an issue on the FW ports when the MBP is not connected to the AC adapter, which is confirmed here

Now this got me thinking: I received a USB DC plug with the casing as well. Maybe I should try powering the vipower via the usb/dc connector, and purely use the FW connector for data, and not power. This MIGHT remove the power problem when running off battery
 
Nice to know... but have you tried disabling the "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep" option under Energy Saver Preferences?

I've found that the vipower usb2/FW400 combo pulls a lot of power on my acer laptop under windows (USB), so much so that it doesn't work without the usb power cable.
I don't have this problem on the 15" CD MBP. I haven't noticed a problem under FW on the MBP, but then I don't run under FW a lot... the drive is my bootcamp boot partition.

BTW I concur about the FW speed... may be slower than USB2 on paper, but beats it hands down in reality.

Landy... have you confirmed a target disk mode FW boot off the Vipower?
 
BobJones said:
Nice to know... but have you tried disabling the "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep" option under Energy Saver Preferences?

I've found that the vipower usb2/FW400 combo pulls a lot of power on my acer laptop under windows (USB), so much so that it doesn't work without the usb power cable.
I don't have this problem on the 15" CD MBP. I haven't noticed a problem under FW on the MBP, but then I don't run under FW a lot... the drive is my bootcamp boot partition.

BTW I concur about the FW speed... may be slower than USB2 on paper, but beats it hands down in reality.

Landy... have you confirmed a target disk mode FW boot off the Vipower?
Click to expand...

Apparently the 15" MBPs don't suffer from the Firewire power problem, only the 17" ones.

I haven't booted off the Vipower, as I am not running bootcamp, but Parallels.
 
Update: Ok, from what I've tested tonight, it does seem that the 17" MBP suffer from "Low power output" on the (at least) FW 400 port. With the MBP running of batteries, the FW HDD dies after spinning up. Connecting the USB Power cord to the external, does keep the power levels high enough for the external to function. When the MBP is plugged into the mains, the additional power supply via the USB port to the external makes no difference.

Conclusion: If you are going to use a MBP 17" often on battery power with FW peripherals connected, make sure you have other means of powering the FW goodies (either via their own power supply - duh, as you want to be mobile - or a USB power source)

Other than that, the ViPowER FW 800 chassis rocks (on FW 400 at least :p)

Nag ou grote!
 
I am now running the new beta Parallels, but via USB2 :(
Drag and drop between the vm and OSX should be quite cool.

Why am I running on USB2? My happiness was shortlived ... there seems to be some problem with Parallels accessing the Firewire drive properly. It would start up, and halfway through startup the drive will just die (even with the additional power source).

Also, when only running the drive for normal use in OSX via FW, everything is fine, until starting ||. Will have to look through their forums to see if anything can be done :( Misa very unhappy
 
LandyMan said:
I am now running the new beta Parallels, but via USB2 :(
Drag and drop between the vm and OSX should be quite cool.

Why am I running on USB2? My happiness was shortlived ... there seems to be some problem with Parallels accessing the Firewire drive properly. It would start up, and halfway through startup the drive will just die (even with the additional power source).

Also, when only running the drive for normal use in OSX via FW, everything is fine, until starting ||. Will have to look through their forums to see if anything can be done :( Misa very unhappy
Click to expand...
Odd - I have no such problem. How did you set it up?
 
I have a Mac Partition on the external, where the VM file is located. ||s is installed on the main Mac partition on my MBP, "calling" the VM file from the firewire partition. So I don't know if it is somehow still related to the FW ports on the MBP (as per my previous links), or if it is the chassis/|| combination :confused:
 
What I did - out of habit I suppose - is symlink the image file to where it was originally.

There shouldn't be anything wrong with the mbp ports - I'd sooner suspect the chasis.
 
bwana v.22 said:
What I did - out of habit I suppose - is symlink the image file to where it was originally.

There shouldn't be anything wrong with the mbp ports - I'd sooner suspect the chasis.
Click to expand...

Please explain your symlink solution to me? Are you saying to create a symlink on the MBP to the file on the external?

Well, I wouldn't think the ports either, but there are some power problems on the ports. BUT, that being said, "straight" FW link in OSX works fine, only when I start up parallels from the external is it giving me crap
 
I copied the parallels directory over to the external - then in the directory that used to reside on the internal hdd I created a symlink to the new folder.
 
Hmm, now things are becoming interesting. You mention copying the full directory (which would include the pvs file). Up to now I was running the pvs from the MBP HDD. I quickly searched on the Parallels forum, where one guy suggested copying the pvs and hdd files to the external. I did that, fired up parallels, and I actually managed to get it to start up, and getting to the windows update site. So, I am hoping this will work.

I will also try the symlink solution, thanks bwana
 
Ag crap, it died again! VM dead as a doornail!

I was busy installing XP updates, and the thing stopped. Maybe something to do with writing to the file, as it stopped the minute the installation started :confused:
 
How about moving the image back to your hdd, updating it, then moving it back?
 
Updating the image: What should I be updating?

I have also considered reinstalling the VM, on the FW drive from scratch, but it works fine with USB2
 
Doing the windows updates with the image on the boot drive

My parallels has expired so I cant be of much help I'm afraid.
 
Ah, ok, I see what you mean. That is an option, but that is just one area where I noticed it. The problem with the fact that it doesn't even fire up XP is of a bigger concern for me though.

Without wanting to jinx it, XP's been running now for 10 minutes, actually busy with Windows Update -> Using your symlink suggestion bwana.

If it remains stable, I'll have to send you something nice :D

and there I jinxed it. Dead again :( :(
 
I think you bought a dodgy enclosure - its still a bit suspect that a fw800 case only comes with a fw400 cable.
 
Will chat to the guys tomorrow to swap it out ... Just hate it when you want to do something and it doesn't want to work! Like getting 2X1Gb sticks and no Mini to put it in :
 
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